Category: Activism

Photo by Linda Gisbrecht Most of us who now consider ourselves able-bodied will eventually experience one or more disabilities, if we live long enough. Some people use the phrase “temporarily able-bodied” as a reminder of this fact. As I age and my body structures show seven decades of wear and tear, I feel this truth …

It’s Spring Equinox. Buds, blooms, bombs. Tanks, terror, tulips. Inside the south-facing window of my home office, I have a rectangular plastic tray divided into eighteen squares full of potting soil. This week, tiny seedlings have raised bright green stems and leaves above the surface, risking air and exposure. Red Sails lettuce. Two kinds of …

  February 1 is Imbolc, a time for us to sweep out whatever in our homes and lives is completed or no longer useful and open our bellies, hearts, minds, and souls to new callings, new currents, new commitments. Given what is going on in our communities, nation, and world, how can we leap into …

Sergeant Gonell: “Despite being outnumbered, we did our job. Every member of the House of Representatives, Senators and staff members made it home. Sadly as a result of that day, we lost officers, some really good officers, but we held the line to protect our democratic process because the alternative would have been a disaster. …

It’s spring in the Pacific Northwest, a time when plants that pushed leaves through near-frozen winter ground begin their promiscuous blooming. Next to the hardy hellebores, narcissus and daffodils show off their yellow bonnets. Slender willow branches, brown in winter, turn spring-green as their leaves sprout. At Lake Quinault, where we spent a few days …

Image by Jens Rasch from Pixabay Brigid, or Brid in modern Irish, is the triple goddess of healing, poetry, and alchemy. As the goddess of fire, she rules the forge and is the patron of blacksmiths, who through their art transform molten metal into useful, beautiful, and even magical objects. I am the great-granddaughter of …

It’s the darkest time of year in the darkest year in memory, for many of us. Death, suffering, fear, isolation, cruelty, oppression, corruption, destruction, mendacity, malice. It all feels overwhelming. How can we trust light will return? At the moment of Winter Solstice, the balance of light and darkness shifts almost imperceptibly. The days begin …

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Within the next six months, we will determine the fate of democracy in the United States. This is not hyperbole. If our democracy dies, many people will die too – even more than COVID-19 has already killed. Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) are particularly at …

When I imagine the kind of human community I want to live in, I go to the forest in my mind. In the forest, there is no analogue for racism. No exclusion of certain plants from the web of connection, nurture, and support because of their physical characteristics. That would be counter to the natural …

This week I had a stunning dream: I am in a canoe in a stormy sea. The sky and water are the same color, dark gray. The canoe is crafted from two deer hides sewn together. The canoe is our response to the pandemic. I am being asked to allow my heart to be as …